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Apple Announces MacBook Air Shipping, Apple TV Update Delayed

To make you feel better, the rest of the world could potentially have to wait until the end of the year (and still get less content for twice the price) before a big part of Apple TV will be useful to us.

Think yourself lucky it's only 2 weeks!
 
ReflecTruth said:
Everyday, and sometimes twice a day, I have checked for the Apple TV software update. I bought mine right after THE keynote thinking that it was already shipping with the update. Yeah, so I missed that whole "in 2 weeks thing." As if that wasn't disheartening enough, now I've gotta wait another 2 weeks or so.

Sigh. :(
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Actually, you're not the only one. I did the same thing, ordered mine thinking that this "update" was for "current" aTV owners. Of course at the time I - nor most people I think - was not aware that the hardware was exactly the same. When my aTV arrived I thought I had gotten a old version and jumped online to see what was going on. Turns out many people has the same impression. One person over on the Apple boards mentioned that he went and spoke with Apple Store employees and as it turned out they really didn't even know. I think this was intentional on SJ's part simply because of how he presented it; the whole thing with "current" users. I'm sure if I Q'd up the keynote again I'd see that technically he said it exactly as it's turned out to be, but then I'd be looking back, 20/20 right!

It's not that big of a deal, I would have gotten one either way, I had said over and over (as many did since it seemed obvious) that Apple was missed when it came to the aTV, not so much the device, but the content. It may have been all Apple could do a year ago. In SJ's keynote he basically summed it up, video (movies, tv media, etc.) is not music, most folk don't care to own b/c they just won't watch it more than once or a handful of times. Case in point, back in the VHS days I signed up for one of those movies for a penny deals, and bought movies on VHS every month. I threw them all out years ago, many lost most of the quality and they just took up space.

Anyways, really no point in fretting over the delay, once it's here no one will care about the delay.
 
I think Apple has bit off more than it can chew. The company's entrance into the consumer electronics market has seemed flaky. I just think they're trying to conquer too much to fast. Their products are great, but there are so many things going on. Leopard, xserves, MBAir, :apple:TV, iPhone, iPod Touch, etc, etc, etc...

I think Apple just needs to slow down and take things one at a time. The end result will be a lot less people being pissed off about details that Apple overlooked because the product was rushed. Quality takes time!
 
That is what I like about Apple...

They aren't going to release sloppy software or products because of consumer pressure, they take there time to make sure everything is flowing smoothly when it hits the market.

It's a bummer that the update isn't available yet but like I said...
 
If it's a choice of not being finished but get it out anyway cos we said we would (a la Leopard) or waiting a bit longer, I guess I'd rather wait. Shame though.
 
Know what I think? I think Steve Jobs and Apple were looking at Macworld and wondering "What the hell do we have that we can present? We can't go with nothing." And so they came up with this AppleTV update, sprinkled in with the crappy iPhone update and the Touch upgrade. I think they had an idea of what they wanted to do with the AppleTV but were nowhere near finishing it. He just threw the 2 weeks out there.

I'm telling you, Apple has too much on the plate right now. Being ambitious is great but there is a time and place for it, not to mention there is a way of going about it.
 
apple is really due to get some updates out already. even as an apple fan, i have to say a few things they've done software-wise have seemed unfinished.

the apple tv update will be the difference between it being pretty mediocre and being the replacement for on demand. i think i'll love my apple tv when the update comes out.

the leopard update to get things like airdisk with aebs is a big deal. i suspect that 10.5.2 will be the first version of leopard that feels properly finished and stable for me. i'm looking forward to it.

the iphone software updates. there are still a few popular items on everyones wish list that i'd like to see in my iphone. (i'm not going on about 3g and the like). maybe after the sdk is out and there is some development there it will feel a bit more mature. i love it, but it seems like it's 80% there now, not 100% there.

so for me this is all a mix of promised features that aren't there yet, and expectations about software maturity that i think are reasonable that are just starting to get there. and i would have thought the initial releases of the above would have been more mature and less unfinished feeling. ymmv.

i still like all of the above, and am happy to see the updates and development getting there. but i think all three of those came to market in slightly rougher than expected form. they are becoming as great as i hoped, but that requires some patience on our part.
 
tadunne said:
i would agree except rentals are already here in itunes!?

The only difference between itunes on a computer and Apple TV is the HD content..
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Not exactly - Movie studios are going to treat a PC/MAC differently than a set-top box like the AppleTV. While studios may agree on the terms for renting a movie on your computer screen they are going to be way more careful about what they do with their content aimed at the TV screen.

My guess is studios already have deals in place with cable, Dish, VOD, PPV etc to deliver content to TV screens and this AppleTV deal may be interfering with those previous deals.

Another theory is that Apple is trying to get studios to allow rentals initiated from the AppleTV to be transfered back to your Mac-PC and/or iPod. Currently you can only transfer rentals from iTunes to AppleTV but not the other way around. Since it is technically trivial it must have something to do with the studio contracts.
 
niemo810 said:
I think Apple has bit off more than it can chew. The company's entrance into the consumer electronics market has seemed flaky. I just think they're trying to conquer too much to fast. Their products are great, but there are so many things going on. Leopard, xserves, MBAir, :apple:TV, iPhone, iPod Touch, etc, etc, etc...

I think Apple just needs to slow down and take things one at a time. The end result will be a lot less people being pissed off about details that Apple overlooked because the product was rushed. Quality takes time!
Click to expand...

You are talking as if Apple is still a small company. For a company of Apple's size, they still have very few products. Have you seen how many different kinds of products Sony makes. I am sure it is still growing pains. Apple has several thousand employees for these projects and they are still hiring. Delays like this are very normal in the CE market place. See how many times the PS3 got delayed. The Denon Bluray player is delayed multiple times and now by a few months. etc. etc.
 
Apple refers to the $1799 price of the MBA as "suggested". Does this mean I can go to an Apple store and suggest a lower price to the manager? More importantly, is there any chance such a suggestion would be positively received? ;)
 
jaw04005 said:
I think that was related to Flickr's servers, not the actual Apple TV software. I know I was watching Flickr feeds of people taking pictures during the keynote, and Flickr's Web site slowed to a crawl half-way through.
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maybe so, my comment was more of a joke, but even still, the appletv should account for flickr server problems (its to be expected) and not locked up. Who knows how much more of flickr or ATV he wanted to demo, but the unit locked up and you could tell he was trying to get back to the home screen and then just went on with the presentation.

It was obviously not a stable build. I rather wait two more weeks to iron out the bugs.
 
tadunne said:
i would agree except rentals are already here in itunes!?

The only difference between itunes on a computer and Apple TV is the HD content..
Click to expand...

No, the difference is that it's on a TV. The 24-hour thing is to protect cable "on-demand" services. If it stays on the computer they really don't care. Once it's on TV it suddenly affects cable TV and DVD sales.

Putting rentals on the TV is going to stir up a lot of other things. I'm sure it's taking more time to work those details out than it takes to just put it on a computer.
 
I somehow expected that the new Apple TV update would be delayed. I think we'll see it sometime by the end of February...
It reminds me to the first delay of Apple TV when it was supposed to be released by the end of February and then Apple announced that it would be delayed to March (which indeed happened)
 
Well they never should've said 'in just two weeks' if they weren't sure it was going to be two weeks. I'd say 'one or two weeks' probably means the latter (ie. another two week wait at least). It really is disappointing for customers who bought the product with the initial two week quote in mind.

It's not the end of the world and it's just tough luck to those who did purchase it, but it's hardly something Apple wants to be getting a reputation for, particularly with new customers and an already shaky product.
 
soLoredd said:
Know what I think? I think Steve Jobs and Apple were looking at Macworld and wondering "What the hell do we have that we can present? We can't go with nothing." And so they came up with this AppleTV update, sprinkled in with the crappy iPhone update and the Touch upgrade. I think they had an idea of what they wanted to do with the AppleTV but were nowhere near finishing it. He just threw the 2 weeks out there.

I'm telling you, Apple has too much on the plate right now. Being ambitious is great but there is a time and place for it, not to mention there is a way of going about it.
Click to expand...

there is NO way that the rental feature was thrown together in a few weeks. the ui, maybe. but getting every major studio on board for this type of undertaking took months. if you think that all of these studios rolled all over themselves to get on this, you are fooling yourself.
 
artpease said:
Appears Apple has software engineers who can't meet their schedules...boo
Has anything been on time in the last year?
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Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they've been reading all the online responses and are adding features and fixing things so it launches as perfect as possible.

Sure, we're ALL disappointed, but with Apple it's usually worth waiting for. I hope.
 
ariza910 said:
Not exactly - Movie studios are going to treat a PC/MAC differently than a set-top box like the AppleTV. While studios may agree on the terms for renting a movie on your computer screen they are going to be way more careful about what they do with their content aimed at the TV screen.

My guess is studios already have deals in place with cable, Dish, VOD, PPV etc to deliver content to TV screens and this AppleTV deal may be interfering with those previous deals.
Click to expand...

MicroZoft has managed to get the studios to do this for the 360 download store with no problems...in HD.

I can't imagine that Apple would be less capable in negotiations than microsoft.

but then that would mean they just couldn't get the code right in time for their own announced deadline...and that would be in line with their recent software efforts.
 
i was under the impression that the MBAs needed 10.5.2 with air disc or whatever it's called... does this mean that apple is going to release 10.5.2 today?
 
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